Some say that killing is probably the most difficult thing a person can do.
But just imagine if killing became the only thing that kept you alive. Would you do it? Could you do it? Or would you sacrifice yourself and everything you've hoped and dreamed of to save your soul?
For some of us, killing becomes an easy choice. We give up our humanity to keep breathing.
The most interesting part is that once you start, it doesn't seem so hard a decision any more.
Johanna Mason. Victor. Slave. Killer. Condemned.
She wasn't her titles and she wasn't what you thought she was. Once she was a log roller. Once she was a girl. Once she won the Hunger Games for all of Panem to see.
And it was the worst thing she ever did. Except maybe this.
Slinking – oh, no wait, maybe sauntering is more appropriate – her way into the hotel she put on a mask that sought to thrill. He'd sold her again. The first time had been bad enough, in the train on her Victory Tour somewhere between District's 10 and 9. There'd been no escape and she'd known as soon as the door locked to her train car that something was right.
The man had smelt of liquorice with a hint of vanilla. He'd come at her from behind, wrapping her in his thick arms as she fought tooth and nail to free herself. The struggle had been barely noticed before she was tossed on the bed to have her soul taken from her.
She'd walked bow-legged all through District 10 that day and her prep team had complained about the bruises on her face. She hadn't noticed. She hadn't noticed at all.
But now it was routine. She'd arrive, prepped and primped to some strange location where she'd be tossed to the floor to have her body stolen from her again and again. Every time it was the same. All they wanted was her submission. She'd been so willing to play the role for the Games; they only thought it was real.
With every fight, they only laughed and hit harder.
And every time she'd built her reserve stronger until one day it became who she was. Well, it became what she had left, you could say. She was a body, sold for profit and beaten for pleasure. Her thoughts didn't matter, her snarky words held no water, and her humanity was stripped from her. She thought it funny that in the Games you could give everything to stay alive but if you did, you always realized later that you didn't give enough. There was still more to take.
Even Finnick Odair agreed. He knew what it was to give and keep giving. The Capitol had been taking from him for years. And somehow he still had more to keep giving and giving. Johanna did not. She was empty. Running dry.
But still, here she was, at another hotel with a man who twirled a set of straps around his fingers. He whistled, low and long, as she stepped into the room and shed her coat. All that remained was her prep team's fancy lingerie and it would be gone soon enough, she could tell that.
"How are you at knots, Miss Mason?" The man chided with a sick smile on his lips.
"I'm better with an axe." She was an expert at knots. Calm hands had taught her well.
"Good. Come here – I'd like to try a few."
It started as it ended. The man didn't know a clove hitch from a sheepshank. She was found the next day by the Avox maid, still tied to the bed posts with bruises lining her legs. She'd thanked her stars that the woman couldn't talk – the pitying stares were enough.
It was just like the last time. He was rough and tumble while she played the hapless female. It was getting tired for her. She was losing her mind.
Looming over her, he pulled her hair with a sharp tug and a yelp burst from her lips. Out went her silence and in came her shrieks. Like tears she couldn't stop, the screams echoed around the room as the man tried desperately to silence her. He couldn't stop her and she couldn't stop herself. Panic was in the air as he brought the lamp down on her head.
She was unconscious within the second.
Waking up, it was fuzzy. Her arms were released and her body was limp. The familiar ache was in her groin and she wanted to curl up into a ball. Looking to her right, he was still there, sleeping next to her in a robe he'd found somewhere in the apartment. She wasn't sure how long she'd been out, but all she could remember was the solid glass coming down against her head.
She wanted to die. But she'd promised long ago that she'd rather kill than die.
With shaking hands and nervous fingers, she grasped the edges of the pillow below her head. It was now or never. Now or never.
Now.
She rolled, bare as the day she was born, onto his chest and forced the pillow down onto his face. He struggled, coming to life below her and using his rough hands to try to force her off him. Her legs, still strong from her days in the forest, gripped him harder around the chest as she held on for dear life. As she snuffed out his life.
When he stopped moving – when he stopped fighting – she sat back carefully on her haunches and looked at the pale face below. It was caught up in fury, mouth agape and brows furrowed above open eyes. He was staring. He was dead.
She got a little piece of herself back that day.
She stood outside the apartment building as the ambulanced rushed off down the Capitol streets. Its sirens wailed, stark against the night sky, but she knew they were useless. She killed him. Hospitals couldn't help him now.
She wasn't sorry. Not even a little.
In fact, when she walked home that night, there was a bounce in her step and a whistle on her lips.
"What did you do, Johanna?"
He rarely used her full name, opting to call her 'Jo' or 'Jay' because it didn't remind him of what and who she was. She didn't blame him; she called him 'Finn' or 'Fishboy' just because he hated it.
They'd met in the middle of the night. He'd practically come running when she'd called his phone after returning home. Now they sat in an abandoned park, staring out at the fake trees that shuffled in the night's breeze. It was almost private, except for the part where they were in the Capitol and they were always being watched.
"I took what was mine," she stated casually, her leg bouncing and twitching against his. She could see the frown out of the corner of her eye and it made her frown in turn. "I had to, Finn. You don't understand."
"What did you do?" It was a harsh whisper as his fingers stalled the tapping of her leg by their grip on her knee.
"I killed him. I killed the latest trick."
It was silent. She hadn't expected much, hell, she'd expected him to stalk off. Instead he sat so still it was like he wasn't even there. Time stretched out before her and she watched as the moon slipped higher in the sky.
"He'll make you pay, you know," Finnick murmured in the dark. She could only nod. It was the only course of action that President Snow could take on her. "What are you going to do?"
"Anything I have to."
And she would. Even if it meant killing to stay alive. She would kill, again and again and again until she was free.
They sat together silently until the sun began to rise and then they parted ways. They were night friends – too harsh to be seen in the day. Too afraid to show each other who they were in the daylight.
"President Snow will see you now." The curt woman motioned her forward, arms beckoning her closer like an old friend. Johanna could see her tight smile, the way it was forced upon her lips.
Even his secretary was miserable.
Good.
Stepping into the massive office, she tried not to look away from the snakelike eyes and the plump and puckered red lips. He was like a cat stalking its prey as he slid around his desk and leaned against the edge, his body hovering over her like a dark shadow. Sitting in the chair at his feet, perched on the edge like an owl, she watched him. She didn't blink.
He laughed.
"So Miss Mason," he growled, getting up off the desk and walking back around to the other side. The smooth leather of his domineering chair creaked as he lowered himself into it, his hands shuffling across the papers neatly stacked before him. "I was informed that Mr Clemens was... Disposed of, earlier this week. Found in an apartment which I believe you frequent – am I correct in my assumption?"
Don't blink, don't blink.
Her toes wanted to tap. Instead she bit the inside of her cheek until it bled.
"I wasn't aware, Sir," Johanna responded, her voice masking her fear. The Capitol facade was saving her ass and she'd never been happier to have perfected the falsetto tones and vicious smile they all so liked. Snow knew better.
"Lying is not becoming of you – but you know that." He tsk'd, shaking his head as he looked over a sheet in the center of his pile. When he returned his gaze to her, he smiled a sickening smile (the same one he used to first tell her of his dealings for her) and laughed a cold, distant bark. "I've a new purpose for you, Miss Mason. One I expect you'll enjoy."
Her stomach dropped. She'd never enjoy anything he had her do. That was the point.
Swallowing hard, she tried not to blink. Tried to keep her terror contained. Tried to keep up the facade. It was cracking under his stare.
"What do you need, Mr President?" And it was need because she didn't give a fucking shit about his want.
"I've arranged an appointment for you, with a man by the name of Cavat Paragold. He's currently vying for a position with the Liaison's Office in District 1 and is very popular with the people. I need him to visit Mr Clemens." He smiled. She wanted to vomit.
This couldn't be happening. He couldn't do this. How had selling her body been better than this? She couldn't kill for him, not when it wasn't her life on the line.
But isn't it? Her inner voice asked. Kill or be killed.
"When? How?" Her words barely escaped her. He knew he had her by the metaphorical balls. No escape.
"The details are up to you, Miss Mason. I've arranged an appointment, usual fare, the Wednesday of next. I expect results by Friday. You're dismissed."
The Peacekeepers removed her for him.
A small nagging part of her asked if this was worse than dying.
Her leg was twitching against the bar stool as Cavat Paragold hovered over her small and lithe frame. She was leaning heavily on the bar, desperate to put some distance between the man's too-large chest and his sickening vanilla scent.
"Here," He barked, shifting a vodka sour towards her and sliding onto the stool beside hers. Without warning, with her drink sloshing in her hand, he jerked her legs to the side and in between his. Staring, Johanna's eyes lit with silent fury.
"So this is the game we play," she muttered quietly and Paragold laughed.
"Used to it, aren't you? Bought and sold? Isn't it just the Capitol way..." He drifted off, running his hand up the length of her thigh until he connected with her crotch. His hand shifted against her and she wanted to crack the glass against his temple.
"Not here, Mr Paragold." It was a demand, not a request. He squeezed his hand in response. Fury licked within her. Taking his gaudy tie in her hand, she pulled him close with a snap and put her lips to his ear. "I said, not here." She pushed and he faltered, nearly slipping off the stool as she stood and walked towards the exit, downing her drink on the way.
He was on her heels in a second, slinking his hand up the back of her dress and squeezing her ass. Mid-step she turned, pulling his hand loose and staring him down.
"Do it again, and I'll break your hand," she snarled and his face lit up like a giddy child. Her stomach turned.
They played a game with her knots. Only she forgot to release when he came and when he slipped unconscious, she didn't lift a finger.
Her skin crawled with every movement, reminding her of where his hands had wandered. To the outside world, it looked like he'd fucked up his auto-erotic session. And she had the research to prove he liked it.
But to her, he looked like just another dead body with vacant eyes.
"Finn – Finn, can you meet me at my place?" It was urgent.
Her lift was opening up to her floor when she saw the man pacing outside her apartment door. His hair was pointing in all directions and his skin was covered in glitter – he was high as a fucking kite.
"Jo, where were you?" Finnick shouted, raising his arms above his head and revealing his bare chest that held a coating of latex body paint. He would get in trouble for leaving his client, whoever they were. Her guilt rose substantially higher.
"Not here," she urged, opening her door and pushing his solid frame past the threshold. Her fingers found the light switch to her right before she jogged to her clock and flicked the button on the back. There was no sound to be heard when the audio loop wound up and began replaying for the bugs. Those watching in the Capitol would be privy to the sounds of her getting ready for bed – singing in the shower (terribly), making a snack, and re-living vivid nightmares.
Finnick knew the moment the wall was up and they were safe and he stepped forward, gripping her upper arms tight between his fingers until the skin pinched.
"Jo," his voice was a warning. She knew that look, a combination of uppers and sensory enhancers. He was meant for pain tonight – she didn't feel as guilty for calling him anymore.
"He has me killing people." Despite the blockers, despite the silence of the apartment, she barely spoke above a whisper as her voice rasped out its confession. Finnick's face paled and he stepped back, a new look – one she didn't recognize at all – filtering over his face.
"What do you mean?"
"I'm like – I'm like his fucking personal assassin!" It was time to shout now. "I killed someone – on purpose. I took their life, Finn."
"What are you going to do?" She shook her head, stepping away from him and heading towards the kitchen. She distanced herself by pulling down a glass and filling it with water. The gulps were the only thing keeping her from rambling on in a panic. When it was finished, she set the glass on the counter.
Finnick watched it shatter. Watched as her hand began to bleed red.
"Jo, your hand." He stepped forward and she looked down to where the blood was pooling on the floor.
"I'm just trying to keep living," Johanna whispered urgently, her eyes wide as she looked back up to his hazy pupils.
"This is different – you're killing people for him now!"
She wanted to cower. She wanted to run and hide. If Finnick turned on her she was truly alone – he was her mirror of ethics. He was the one who said when it was right and when it was wrong.
"You can't kill innocent people, Jo," Finnick cried, invading her space again and grabbing her ignored bloody hand to run it under the sink.
"How is it any different from the kids I killed?" Her words pulled him up short and he stepped back again. When he looked down, away from her, she knew there wasn't a difference. Not really. If anything, these people deserved it more because they were part of the cycle and not just kids with bad luck.
It was funny how it became so easy to rationalize killing.
That must be how the Capitol wins. Always.
It went on for years. She was contracted out with a minimum of two kills per month. After a while, Snow allowed the rich to buy her services. She was sold twice, once as a killer and once as someone to fuck. Only some of them got the full deal.
With every session she slipped a little further away from the girl she'd once known. From the girl who won her Games. From the woman Finnick knew. They could both see it but neither could face it.
When 74 came along, she was deeply embedded in a difficult mission to take down a liquor baron in District 8.
Somewhere along the way, the targets became less tragic. She wouldn't say they were easier – every time was like rebuilding a piece of her soul in a more crooked way – but they did become less important. And that's where it usually struck her. When she took out a Community Home owner who was fighting against illegal child working conditions in District 11, she'd never felt lower.
Finnick hadn't talked to her for weeks after that.
She'd rather never see him again. She couldn't bear to meet his troubled gaze, knowing what she'd done. Knowing what she still had laying ahead. The trade – keep breathing just to kill.
In her apartment, tangled in sheets, she laid next to Finnick who puffed breath like an infant as he slept. She watched as his chest rose and fell with each breath, his heart beat thumping in his neck. Over time she'd learned just where to press so that that pulse would stop.
She'd perfected it while they slept.
That exact moment, as her own heart pulsed in her veins, she remembered the passing comment Finnick had made that night. The one just after 74 had taken home a duel crown and he'd come rushing to her apartment, body still half-bare. She'd hit the button as soon as he'd pushed through her door.
"'The time has come,' the Walrus said," He'd gasped. He'd looked high then too – frantically so – but she'd listened as he spoke about alliances and rebels and a District uprising that all started with a few little berries.
"It'll never work," She'd scoffed after a while of listening to his exaggerated claims that all stemmed from Haymitch Abernathy's drunken rantings. Finnick had stared her down, his eyes never leaving hers as she sunk back into the couch.
"Would you rather your heart keep beating as you stop another's?"
She decided here, lying in this bed next to this man, that she'd rather not. That she was ready to die if only to stop her soul from rebuilding in such a cruel shape.
It was time to give in. She was ready to fight and die for something.
Her last appointment was in the Capitol. Snow had set it up himself, arranging the meeting with the new Head Gamemaker because the man had done something with someone's wife or something of the sort.
Johanna had already stopped caring.
"Plutarch Heavensbee?" She called, sauntering into the large room of the Training Headquarters. It was just after 74 and they were still cataloguing items for the Arena's museum.
"Ah, Miss Mason, what a pleasure."
From that moment on, Johanna knew there was something different about this man. He didn't take advantage, he didn't try a thing. He was sympathetic without being kind. There was something in his eye that glinted in the wrong way, especially in the Capitol.
Stepping onto a limb, she brought him to her apartment and pressed her clock button.
"How would you like to put an end to all of this, Heavensbee? How would you like to watch the world burn?" Her words were slick though they nearly stuck in her throat.
His eyes lit with a new fire – one aroused by the idea of a new kind of game.
"A power shift, perhaps?"
It was just a thought that bounced around in her head as she rocked on her heels. She was back in 7, a requirement for the Reaping. The news of the Quell had caught her off guard and Snow had banished her home fearing she was unable to control her mood swings or her lips.
She hid out in her house, only seeing those daring to pass her threshold.
Haymitch Abernathy had come, only once during his Victors' Victory Tour. They'd shared a drink and he'd scoffed at her new 'role' in the Capitol. She hadn't seen an ounce of judgement in his gaze and for that she was almost thankful.
When Finnick visited (though she'd asked him not to), he'd brought with him the sounds of the sea in a shell. She'd clung to it for days, desperate to escape the enclosing trees that surrounded her house and bound her here like roots to soil.
The day of the Reaping the humidity had stuck in the air like a thick wave. Being the only female, she knew she was going back – it wasn't a shock when her name was pulled. She tried not to frown when Blight, a fellow Victor, was drawn forth from the small club of male Victor's from District 7. He'd never looked wearier.
Arriving in the Training Center in the heart of the Capitol she'd almost felt home. It sickened her.
The large bed in her suite, the one decorated with sweeping views of forests, was a placeholder for a crisp piece of cardstock, shaped into a rose. Below it lay a letter she knew could only be lined with the scent of roses. It was char in the fireplace to her right before she could even pull in a breath.
That part of her life was over. They were already going to kill her – she was done with killing for them.
Well, done until she was in the Arena again. And then she'd do what she needed to to make sure the plan worked.
"I heard you liked to kill for fun, my dear." The woman is old and dreary, her greying hair pulled back in a tight bun as she pushes around in the ankle deep water. Johanna is tied to a chair, her head rolling across the back of it as she tries to remain conscious.
Another zap will come soon, she knows it. That's how they torture her here, putting her on a metal chair and zapping a pool of water so that the shock litters her skin and pulses through her veins.
She should have died in the Arena – but she'd been so determined.
"How did you like to do it best? I heard a rumour you suffocated them with this," The woman grips her between her legs and she desperately wants to close them but they're already bound to the chair, spreading her wide. She's not afraid of nudity, never really has been, but this is different. There's no price to earn here, just an extended death.
"Or perhaps, you liked to play with this." With every word, the woman pulls out a new assault on her senses, drifting a harsh rope up along her bare skin and wrapping it lightly around her neck. She's almost surprised by the sharp pull the woman gives, turning the knot into a noose.
If her eyes weren't so bleary, she'd have seen that coming. But nothing is clear right now.
"Come on, little girl, why won't you sing for us?" The woman's voice is fading as the string remains tight. Johanna wants to struggle, but knows it's pointless. Maybe this time they'll actually let her sizzle out and die. When the door closes, she skewers her palms with her nails and clenches her teeth together, trying to zone out the pull of the noose on her neck.
The countdown from the Arena, such an androgynous sound, echoes in the room around her.
10. 9. 8. 7. 6. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1.
It's the smell of electricity that hits the air first, fanning out and letting you know that the feeling of being burned from the inside is coming. Like a brick wall it hits and her body jerks, her skin singeing with the new level. The noose around her neck tightens as she lurches forward, her abdominal wall fighting to release as the electric current courses through her. Just as fast as it starts, it stops, and the noose is removed.
"That'll be all," A voice from above rings out. She feels her bindings cut as her eyes remain closed, unable to open. Her body falls limp to the side, the muscles seized in exhaustion, as she's dragged back to her cell. The heels of her feet bounce on the cobbled pathway.
"Johanna?" Peeta Mellark – Victor – calls to her through the wall between their cells. She thinks she can hear a level of desperation in his voice.
"Still alive," she croaks. Her body lets go a moment later and she slips into black.
"Would you just fucking kill me already?" Her voice is hoarse, barely audible above the shouting and the chaos that has surrounded her for some unknown god-awful time. Currently, she's tossed over someone's shoulder (not being dragged) and heading at a steady clip down the stone walkway. The bounce in the step is making her nauseous but she has nothing to vomit up anymore. Her skin is like latex on bone – tight and shiny and fragile, the open wounds seeping a strange pus she can't recognize anymore.
Consciousness is fleeting, she realizes, when she wakes and finds herself farther away from her cell than she can recall ever being. It shocks her body into action, her arms and legs kicking out and beating the body that carries her.
This is it. This is it.
Maybe a firing squad. Or just leave the body in the open to rot.
Maybe she'll get to see the sun.
"No death, not just yet." The gruff voice replies as they burst through a door and to the surface of the earth. The sky is dark above her, the stars twinkling in the distance. Fresh air whips in her face and she is overwhelmed by the sound of a hovercraft.
When she's set down on a bench within the beast of a machine, she manages to open her eyes and catch a look at her captor. He's tall, olive skinned with dark hair. She must be dreaming.
"Where am I going?" She whispers, catching his attention. Her body shifts until it's tipping on the bench and he straightens her upwards again. In the doorway of the craft she sees another man hauling an unconscious Peeta.
"Home." The man in front of her states, getting back to his feet and moving to help with Peeta.
Home? There's nothing there for her at home. They'll kill her. Sell her to kill. Sell her.
District 13 is nothing like she expected. First of all, it exists, automatically making it more real than what she could have ever imagined. Second, the underground tunnels are starting to make her stir crazy. The people are making her crazy.
She was probably already crazy.
"You'd do best to shower, you know." Finnick calls from the doorframe, leaning heavily as he watches her pace across the cement floor. She knows she should shower, but she can't bear the water or the shock or the way her muscles convulse at the idea of it.
"You know I can't," she hisses, glaring at him but still pacing. Wearily, out of the corner of her eye, she watches as he sinks onto her fragile bed frame.
"What did they do to you, Jo?"
She still hasn't told anyone yet. She can't. They'll know that they took so much more from her than just her sanity. That they stole her soul.
Did she even have one by then?
She keeps pacing.
"Jo, calm down," Finnick coos, his hand gripping hers lightly and trying to tug her out of her frantic pacing. Quite possibly, her hands are shaking. "You're still alive. You made it. We all made it."
"Parts of us made it," she corrects and the scathing look she gives him pushes him from the room.
She doesn't pass her qualifications to be sent to the Capitol with everyone else. Instead she's left to stew with Haymitch Abernathy and this sick woman Coin who won't let her eat a muffin unless it's part of her daily ration. She hates this woman.
Together they sit in the Control Room as the live feed from the propo camera follows the 'Star Squad' around the Capitol streets. Johanna wants to shudder at the places she recognizes, but manages to hold her tapping toes at a standstill.
She's pretty sure that all of her muscles are seizing at the same time so as to not move even an inch.
Meals are brought to them in the room so that nobody is forced to leave. Underground, she watches with red rimmed eyes as the mutts follow them through the sewers. She knows what's going to happen. She watches it happen. Her eyes never leave the screen as her best friend, her only friend, is torn apart by the vicious mutts.
When it's over, when the holo has been dropped and the scene blown to bits, her body is numb. Standing, she returns to her solitary unit and paces. Paces back and forth until she can't feel her legs. And then she collapses onto the cement and sits.
"Johanna Mason?" The knock comes at the door, stirring her from her own mind that flashes constantly with memories of her Finn. Still, she doesn't move.
The door opens anyways. Looking up, she sees the woman Finnick married, the girl who appeared so broken until the day of their wedding. She's back to broken now, her face marred by tear stains and her District-issued sweats hanging off her body while her hair hangs in strands.
"He always talked so kindly about you," Fragile Annie, Anwyn, Cresta whispers from the doorway. Johanna's heart seizes, along with the rest of her muscles, as the pain dares to break through to her. Somewhere she feels arms wrap around her and a clutching embrace.
This woman, offering comfort, brings Johanna to her first bout of tears since playing weak for her Games.
"She's not going to do it," Johanna whispers out of the corner of her mouth to Gale Hawthorne, her saviour and her accomplice. They're standing on the balcony across the street, watching together as Katniss raises her bow in the public execution of President Snow.
She wished it was her.
Gale had come to her after the mission – after he'd watched his best friend's sister die at his hands – and he'd been lost. She hadn't known what to do then apart from keep him sane and alive, two things she considered her personal speciality. Those days had been the most difficult. She'd watched, embarrassed, as he cried for what he lost (though she couldn't understand why since his family was still fully intact) and for what he'd done.
Afterwards, as he pulled his shoulders back and she joked about the waterworks, the look on his face had gone from tragedy to something more prone, something achingly detached. He'd changed with those tears and with that change, he was no longer the same Gale Hawthorne she'd come to know.
He'd built his walls, tall and strong, and now he was going to hide behind them.
"Don't doubt her," Gale replies, his voice strong and drawing her back to the present. Despite what she remembers, she can see the doubt he has for Katniss in the way his body tenses and the subtle manner in which his hands grip the bar before them.
"It's different to execute someone," she pushes again, her eyes straying to the crowd of people in the streets.
"Oh?" It's a question, though not an overly interested one. That's a story for another time. She keeps her mouth shut and watches Katniss let loose the arrow into Coin's chest. For a moment, she wants to jump with glee. And then she watches as the panic rings out below and Gale snatches her wrist tightly in his hand.
"What're you doing?" She shouts. He returns a glare and tugs her to the door.
"We have to go, Jo – before the crowd riots."
She digs in her heels. He frowns.
"I'll see you again, Hawthorne," She shouts as the screams ring out around them. Gale turns on his feet, leaving her alone on the overlook as he heads towards his Commander. Turning back towards the streets, she watches as the insanity catches. Down below, Gale's frame disappears into the crowds of people and she says a silent goodbye. She couldn't go with him – she's still not that kind of girl.
All she wants to do right now is watch the world burn.
The dreams begin to overtake her nightly. She tries not to sleep now, but sometimes her body thrusts her into it out of sheer exhaustion. Every night they're the same, but somehow they're all different. She's sure that every night she relives a different kill, a different assault.
They all seem to blur together.
It haunts her, just as the sight of blood on her hands haunts her.
There's no escaping the mind. They really did take her soul. They took it and left her with only the faces.
She doesn't go out for weeks. She doesn't answer her phone. When letters are slipped under the door she burns them.
After the execution she was returned to District 7 and to what remained of her old Victor home. She hadn't been here in years, it seemed, and it was nearly in ruins. Nobody else remained in the Victor's Village, that was clear now. So she stayed inside and doled out her own punishment for her crimes.
On the nights when the rain would pattern outside on her roof, she'd find herself sitting on a chair in her barren kitchen, waiting for the countdown to come. It was only once the rain stopped and the sun came out that she realized she wasn't being tortured anymore. That dripping was her leaking roof, not a tap filling the floor with water.
There was no one here to shock her into confession. No one here trying to kill her because of what she knew.
These moments bred the highest clarity for her and on these days she could shower. She could touch water. She could overwhelm herself with the fact that she was still breathing and that despite all she'd done, she was still living.
She's seen him on TV countless times. She's watched as the bags under his eyes grow and the weariness of time and politics and the rebuilding seem to take their toll on him. They haven't seen or spoken to each other since the execution.
Now she's standing in front of his apartment door, her hand raised and poised to knock, when instead it swings back and a little girl barrels out and into her stomach.
"Posy, wait for –" The voice stops abruptly and she looks up from the child wrapped around her leg for support. He looks much worse than he does on TV – almost as bad as she feels. His short, militant hair is skewed in all directions and his eyes don't shine anymore. "Posy, go inside." Gale mutters and the little girl dislodges, recognizing the strain in his voice.
Johanna inwardly cringes.
"I read your files." It's blunt and forward and honest as he closes the door behind him. She doesn't look away from his gaze which has grown intense in the seconds that she's been standing here.
She can't help but think that it's good that he knows. That he can take her or leave her or arrest her or finally put an end to this. Maybe she secretly came to pay the piper.
"You killed for them – am I right?" She nods at his question and can't miss his frown. "Was it for fun?" He whispers darkly, his eyes finally breaking away as he looks down the hallway. Her eyes catch the flicker of his fists balling into white-knuckled grips.
"It was to live." Short, terse, to the point. She needs no further explanation now. She's come to terms with what she's done – at least in the daylight.
The silence between them seems to grow thick as he digests her answer. In all the time that they'd known each other, throughout the war and the trial and the aftermath, he's never once looked so forlorn. It makes her skin itch and her brain hurt.
Johanna still can't figure out why she finally came to the Capitol to search him out. She knows that part of it was because on his latest briefing he'd reported a recent progress trip to District 12 and she'd known then that he'd finally had to face what had happened. He'd looked distraught and some part of her that she was unfamiliar with had felt something stir. It had been interesting, to say the least.
The next words from his lips hit her like a brick. "Did you enjoy it?"
She wants to punch him. "As much as anyone can enjoy being repeatedly raped and then being forced to murder." She hopes her words hurt him as much as that question hurt her to hear. There's no way she misses the cringe in his posture.
"I'm sorry they made you do it."
"No. I chose to do it – I was determined to live. I've got a lethal desire to keep breathing, Hawthorne. Every Victor does."
Again the silence stretches out and she starts to wonder why she even came. What exactly had she hoped for here? Why did she even bother? Her feet have taken her halfway down the hallway when his voice finally rings out.
"I designed the bomb that killed Primrose Everdeen." She freezes, turning on her heel slowly to meet his troubled gaze. Somehow he's standing right behind her, glaring down as he reveals the secret she's known all along.
"We all have our demons." Johanna states.
After that first night, she doesn't go back home. The Hawthorne clan that lives in the four bedroom apartment in the Capitol's political district welcomes her with tentative arms, but welcome her none the less.
The children are wary, often watching her from their bedroom doorframes as she loiters in the front room. On more than one occasion she catches them whispering behind their hands about her Games. She tries to ignore it.
Every so often she'll catch Hazelle, Gale's mother, folding her clothes gently and pressing them with such care. The woman doesn't say it out loud, but she tends to Johanna like one of her own. It eats at her, but she doesn't know how to thank her for her kindness. For her son.
On the nth day, when she actually collapses from exhaustion onto the couch in the front room, she's pulled into a night terror so deep that there's no hope of escape. But then his hands are there, wrapping around her bony shoulders and shaking the dream loose. Behind him are his siblings, his mother, all staring at her as she clutches at her patchy-short hair and tries to hold it together.
"Mom – can you...?" Gale asks quietly and Hazelle knows, without words, to usher the kids back to bed as Gale remains kneeling before her.
"Jo, come back again," he whispers, his hands on her knees forcing her to keep from curling them into her chest. She's not weak, but the images are still there, haunting her behind her eyes.
"I killed them all," she croaks, her voice tired.
"To live. You did it to live."
She doesn't answer him. Instead she pushes to her feet and begins to pace around the center of the apartment, circling the couch like she remembers Wiress doing in the Arena. Gale's eyes follow her, every step he watches like a hunter in the woods.
"Don't make me do it again, Gale. I won't. I'll fucking die this time. I should already be dead." It's not regret, but it's something close to it. Rounding the armrest of the couch again, Gale steps in front of her and she pulls up short.
"This isn't the old Capitol; we're not going to force you to do anything. We'll take care of you. I'll take care of you." His hands are on her shoulders, rubbing up her arms, soothing her.
She remembers a time, for so long, that she'd watched as he pined from afar for Katniss. Where was that longing now?
They stare at each other for too long, their eyes searching for something they won't find. It's when she tries to finally pull away that he pulls her back and presses his lips to hers, catching her off guard. Quick and chaste, that's how it is, before he pulls her into his room and away from the couch she calls her bed.
At first, it's not love or romance or longing. It's satiating a need.
Over the weeks, as Johanna slips into this mesh of a family, teaching the boys to whittle wood and Posy how to build a stool, something begins to fit. Gale's touches become familiar, his kisses become public, and even Posy notices the small smile that creeps up on him.
The other end of the phone is silent apart from the surrounding buzz that seems to accompany any and all long-distance calls made now a days. She twists her fingers in her lap, her tapping toe betraying her calm exterior as she waits for Peeta Mellark to take a breath.
"You're what, Johanna?" He asks again, seeking clarity as the pitch in his voice breaks.
She knew this would be awkward, telling this – well, what she thinks might be a friend – about her situation. She hadn't expected it and now she wasn't quite sure what to do with it. Peeta, the one person in this world still so familiar with her screams, always picked up the phone when she called.
"I'm knocked up, Bread Boy." Her voice didn't waver, though her foot moved more frantically against the floor. Over the line, Peeta inhaled sharply.
"Can I ask who got close enough to do that?" There was a hint of laughter in his voice. Maybe even happiness for her. She knew he wanted kids, he'd talked about it often enough in the cells, but still he couldn't convince the Mockingjay to breed. Johanna knew it picked at him, though he'd never admit it.
"I don't think you really want to know. Besides, I just phoned to tell you so when I got there in two weeks you wouldn't freak out or something." She still hadn't told Gale – she'd had the grace period of him being on a cross-country tour or something of the like. Thankfully, he'd been gone in the weeks where she started to show.
Johanna did not want to tell Gale Hawthorne what they'd done. They didn't talk about kids or marriages or futures. They talked about wars and structures and keeping a country together.
"You'll have to tell us someday, Jo. Can't wait to see you." They hung up hastily after that and Johanna was able to take a breath.
Two weeks later, she climbs off the train and steps onto the unfamiliar terrain of District 12. In an instant, Peeta is there, wrapping her up in a tight hug that she protests against at every turn. Stepping back, she whistles low as she realizes that the boy who'd screamed himself hoarse in the dingy Capitol cells has turned himself into a man.
"We're so glad you came," Peeta states, stepping back and towards his soon-to-be-wife. She'd come for the Toasting – apparently the marriage ritual in District 12. Her gaze flits over to Katniss who, for the first time in Johanna's memory, is smiling and not scowling.
"I'm glad I came too. Who could miss out on this hopping party?" She jokes and motions around to the nearly empty train stockyard. When she goes to grab her bags, Peeta is there instantly, pulling them from her hands and mumbling about some 'condition' that she apparently has. She wants to fight about it, but the boy was carrying her bags for her. Instead, she relents and sidles up to Katniss, linking their arms together.
"Congratulations, I think," Katniss states carefully. Johanna snorts and claps her belly with one palm.
"That's what they keep saying. But we'll see if I can even keep it alive." She jokes, her words betraying her true fears.
"You kept yourself alive – you'll do what you need to." Katniss knows – she did what she needed to do too. They were both murderers for hire.
The ceremony is rather short and Johanna is surprised. Apparently the dinner is the party part of the ritual, bringing together Katniss' mother, Haymitch, Annie and Finnick's son (who is thrust into her arms as soon as Annie sees her protruding belly), and an old woman, Sae, who Katniss and Peeta have relied on since coming back to the District. They're midway through Peeta's dessert course when a knock rings out from the front door.
Years of being terrified, years of hiding from Peacekeepers who enter with that knock, has the people at the table wearily looking around. They all know that the only people who were supposed to know about this evening are here. The knock comes again and Johanna stands, motioning with her hands to keep Peeta in his seat.
With all the heat and muster she can manage, Johanna swings the door open and snarls her greeting.
She nearly takes a step back when she sees Gale on the porch, clutching his military cap in his hands and looking out towards the rest of the Village and District 12.
"What're you doing here?" She asks lowly, her eyes glaring at him. He was supposed to be touring the Districts, collecting information about the rebuilding effort.
"Jo, who is it?" Katniss asks from behind her, somewhere in the kitchen. Johanna's breath catches in her throat as Gale's gaze meets her head on. His eyes flit to her stomach and the way that it rounds out just enough to show through her shirt. Her mouth goes dry when he steps back a pace from the door.
The silence seems to stretch, causing the scraping of the chairs to erupt from behind her as Peeta and Katniss come to her defence.
"Gale?" Peeta asks, his voice questioning but steady.
"What's he doing here?" Katniss croaks and Johanna can hear her confusion. Apparently she isn't the only one surprised by his arrival. "Peeta?" Katniss calls again and Johanna can feel the warm hand on her shoulder as Peeta steps forward, reaching a hand out to the man on their stoop.
"I invited him, Katniss." Peeta replies quietly. Gale takes his hand slowly, never letting his eyes wander from Johanna's stomach.
The tension in the house seems to quadruple as Gale steps forward and in, forcing Katniss back into the kitchen and away from the front door. Peeta watches as the man lingers in the foyer, staring down at Johanna with a foreign look in his eyes. She wants to run, run farther and faster than she's even been before.
"Gale, thank you for coming." Peeta states carefully, handling the situation like one would an explosive.
"What the fuck is going on out here?" Haymitch calls and the three of them startle and turn towards his drunken shout. "Oh. I see," Haymitch adds, recognizing Gale instantly. "Well, that's unexpected." The old man looks between Gale and the way he is staring at Johanna and frowns. "Congratulations, Hawthorne." He mutters and disappears back into the kitchen.
Fucking drunk – how can he just know?
Johanna finally breaks her gaze from Gale and turns towards Peeta whose shocked look is plain to see.
"You didn't mention he was coming," she murmurs and steps backwards towards the stairs. The plan is forming in her brain while she takes each step – run, pack, run, escape, hide. Out of the corner of her eye she sees Gale step towards her and she panics, taking the stairs two at a time and slamming the door to her room, flicking the lock, and tossing her clothes in her bag hastily.
Within moments, her bag is thrown over her shoulder and she's creeping down the staircase, praying that he's been drawn into the kitchen.
She's only half right. He's standing in the hallway, a sharp worded conversation happening between him and Katniss as they reunite for the first time in what Johanna bets is years. Good wedding present Mellark, Johanna scoffs internally as she grips the door handle in her palm. It's halfway open, ready for her to slip through silently, when a hand comes down and pushes it closed with a snap.
"Please don't kill me," She whispers urgently, tucking herself against the door and preparing for the impact on her back. She thought she was through with being beaten, but her mind has reverted back to its old Capitol facade and she's stuck, cowering like a fool as Gale stands over her ominously.
"What?" He gasps and she can feel the heat of his body leaving her space instantly. In the second that it takes him to step back, she lurches through the door and bolts through the Village. She doesn't know where she's going – she's never been here before. All she can hear are the shouts behind her and the steady sound of a train rolling through the tracks.
Without consideration, she bolts for it, racing alongside and preparing to try to leap onto one of its open car doors. Her instinct to fight has turned into one of flight as she tosses her bag into the car and tries to pick up speed with the train.
"Johanna!" The familiar voice calls out from behind her and her steps falter, only momentarily, but enough to pull her up short. She's still running when she feels the hands wrapping around her and holding her in place while she struggles to free herself. "Jo, please, please." The voice at her neck begs and the hands come out to pull her fists to her chest.
"Don't hurt me! I'll do anything! Please!" She's screaming like the night she killed Mr Clemens. Her mind is there, no longer in the present, as the arms around her bind her tightly.
"Stop fighting me!" Gale rages and sits forcefully on the ground, dragging her with him until his legs wrap around hers and her whole body is forced to stop mid-struggle.
For the second time since her Games, tears fall from her cheeks.
"I'm sorry! I'm so sorry." She apologizes, still trying to escape his tight embrace.
"No, Jo, stop it. Stop. I'm not mad; I'm not going to hurt you. Listen when I say that this is good Jo, this is good." His calm voice seems to pull her back from the edge and she stops moving, her body falling limp as her muscles stop seizing in a familiar clench. Gale continues to soothe with his words, his hands running the length of her arms as she tries to pull herself back together.
After a while, when the sky has darkened considerably, she turns and pulls back, meeting his eyes carefully and searching their depths. She'd almost jumped on a moving train to escape this moment. She'd nearly killed herself to get away from this.
"You know Jo, for someone who did so much to stay alive, you have an interesting way of running from the good things about living," Gale quips, finding the small ounce of hope that kindles in her gut.
"A lot of people like to think I'm insane, you know," she whispers in return and surprising even herself, lets her lips crash into his.
They never marry, though they have more children. Two boys and a girl. Johanna never expected any of them. Neither had Gale.
In the end, Johanna found her way back to District 7. They built a home in the woods and tried to forget their lives as scarred by the war. Together they moved on, building something new and fighting through the dark. Still, their dreams lingered, pulling them into memories like a thick fog.
On those days they each found it best to seek the comfort of the trees.
Gale was the first to pass. It caught them by surprise when pneumonia took him one winter. Johanna made it through, but he joined her in her dreams. He was a frequent visitor though she'd never claim those were nightmares.
When her time finally came it was, ironically, in the bed next door to a relapsing Peeta Mellark. Though not much older than forty, her heart gave out as she listened to the man's familiar screams. It was Haymitch Abernathy who found her. Abernathy who buried her. Abernathy who informed the Hawthorne clan and her children.
She'd fought for her life for so long, it had only been right that her body had been the first thing to give in. It wouldn't have been right for her mind to give up first. She'd always had that killer instinct to keep living.
AN: I couldn't get this one off of my mind. I know that's weird, probably, but I found it cathartic to write and then I just couldn't stop. It got distracting. So I finished it and now here it is, out in the open. Feel free to hate it, I won't be offended.